I've tried to replace a couple of existing derived stream/streambuf classes that are used with boost::serialization i/o archives to support Drag/Drop/Copy/Paste in an MFC application. The Drop/Paste side works great and significantly simplifies and reduces the amount of code req'd: class CSharedFileIStream : public boost::io::stream_facade< boost::io::array_source > { typedef boost::io::array_source tSource; typedef boost::io::stream_facade< tSource > tBase; HGLOBAL mMemHdl; public: ~CSharedFileIStream( ){ ::GlobalUnlock(mMemHdl); } CSharedFileIStream( HGLOBAL aMemHdl ) : tBase( (LPTSTR)::GlobalLock(aMemHdl), ::GlobalSize(aMemHdl) ) , mMemHdl( aMemHdl ) {} }; Used like so: CSharedFileIStream lIn( lMemHdl ); boost::archive::binary_iarchive ia( lIn ); ia >> aVal; Unfortunately, the Drag/Copy side produces a access violation in the std::locale copy constructor, when boost::io::detail::indirect_streambuf::imbue calls std::basic_streambuf::pbuimbue. I've tried the following with both binary/text archive types: struct CSharedFileSink : public boost::io::sink { CSharedFile& mSharedFile; CSharedFileSink( CSharedFile& aSharedFile ) : boost::io::sink() , mSharedFile(aSharedFile) {} void write( const char* s, std::streamsize n ){ mSharedFile.Write( s, n ); } }; class CSharedFileOStream : public boost::io::stream_facade<CSharedFileSink> { typedef boost::io::stream_facade<CSharedFileSink> tBase; public: CSharedFileOStream( CSharedFile& aSharedFile ) : tBase( CSharedFileSink( aSharedFile ) ) {} }; Used like so: CSharedFile lOutFile; CSharedFileOStream lOut( lOutFile ); boost::archive::text_oarchive oa( lOut ); Am I doing anything obviously wrong? I love the source/sink approach and would love to take advantage of it's conceptual simplification in dealing with streams. Thanks, Jeff